


and the sky cried

by makeshiftrolley



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Family Dynamics, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 03:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16548413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeshiftrolley/pseuds/makeshiftrolley
Summary: Sara knows grief too well.





	and the sky cried

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



> EDIT: Since it's now reveal date and I don't have to worry about being known, thank you so much to rocknrollalien for betaing it at the last minute lol. I wouldn't have finished this without your help!

The first time Sara learns of her father’s death, she is a prisoner in her own body. Scott lies. She can tell from the pregnant pause between “Dad” and the rest of what he says. He wants her to be happy, wants to protect her from the inevitable truth like they’re still those human kids surrounded by aliens in the Presidium. Sara wants to believe. 

Dr. Carlyle tells her as soon as she wakes up. Thinks it’s easier if she knows right away. 

(It’s harder the second time. Harder hearing it from someone else.) 

\--

There’s nothing to do on the Hyperion. Scott offers her paperwork but Sara declines. She prefers getting her hands dirty out in the open field. And besides, paperwork puts her to sleep. So she roams the Hyperion and the Nexus, making a home out of a galaxy that was unkind to her from the beginning. 

And she thinks. 

If Dad is alive, she’ll be out there, crossing systems on the Tempest. If Dad is alive, she’ll be on the open field, unearthing civilizations of long past. If Dad is alive, she’ll be an explorer as he promised before leaving the Milky Way--an incentive for her to leave the life she knows. (As if she has anything left in her life in the Milky Way, after Dad’s research broke his name and hers.)

And they’ll be family again, Scott, Dad and her as Mom wants them--her dying wish.

(Mom forgets Alec is never family. Or in her last breath, she ignores the countless of birthdays, anniversaries, science projects, stage shows,  _ graduations _ he missed. A forgiveness, regardless if Alec Ryder deserves it or not.)

So Sara stops, stops roaming. If she roams, she thinks and if she thinks, she considers the what ifs and what should haves.

So she stays in the cryo bay, still refusing paperwork. She watches the stars, wondering if Dad watched the same stars when he died. She hasn’t asked how he died. It’s on Habitat 7, Dr. Carlyle tells her but it isn’t enough. How did he die? Was it a heroes’ death as she imagines? Was it quick? Was it painful? Did he think of Mom? Did he think of his children’s faces?

Or did he only think of his ambitions, crumbling into dust as life seeps away from him?

Then Sara doesn’t want to know at all. 

\--

She’s watching the stars in the cryo bay when it strikes her heart like a spear.

She hasn’t said goodbye to her father at all.

\--

Sara knows grief too well.

It comes to her when she least expects, sitting in the Hyperion’s cryo bay, watching, waiting. (She does a lot of waiting these days.) Emotions long buried burst through her like a river breaking through a dam. 

They said goodbye to Mom, six hundred years ago. Too soon, too soon, she protested against fate-- but her protests fell on deaf ears . So Sara Ryder closes herself off from her brother, her father and the rest of the world. For months, they wander around the empty spaces, struggling to fill in the gap Mom left. Dinner is silent as Alec makes small talk of the jobs and dreams Sara and Scott lost because of him.

And slowly but surely, Alec fulfills his promise--the one he made with Mom before her death, built from the promise he made with his twins at their birth. It's not good enough, it may never be good enough but it's everything Sara needs.

Months later, Dad tells them they're going to Andromeda. Someplace new, he says and Sara's heart glows. He promises, and it's enough to crack her isolation.

She falls into a coma. 

She wakes up.

Dad is dead.

And she's sobbing in the cryo bay while mapping out the stars. 

“It's not fair.” She squeezes her hands, hard enough to draw blood. “It's not fucking fair.”

Six hundred years ago, she yelled those same words at the hospital while her mother loses the battle of her life.

Six hundred years later, she says them again, angry at her father's broken promises; angry at herself for failing her parents again. 

Dr. Carlyle comes at her side, asks her what's wrong like a good doctor should. Sara doesn't stop crying.

\--

Scott fulfills Dad's dreams and saves the goddamn day again and again. They crown him Hero of Heleus, and has a day dedicated to him.

She's not jealous. 

She's  _ not _ . She did not spend years wanting to be like her father only to lose it all because of a pod malfunction. 

She should have it, the dreams, the title, everything.

Or else she fails Alec Ryder again.

\--

Mom is alive. 

Sara should be happier. Mom is alive, and they have the tools to heal her completely. She should be happy,  _ fucking _ ecstatic.

But to keep Mom alive, Alec Ryder robs her choice to accept what fate has in store for her.

She runs away from the cryo pods. Scott calls out to her, but she doesn't listen. She doesn't care. 

Mom is alive.  _ She's alive. _

And she condemns Dad for everything he has done.

(Deep down, she wants her Mom back, alive and healthy. She wants her family back.)

\--

“I've got something to show you, if you don't mind,” Scott asks, in between the countless meetings he attends. 

“Sure,” Sara shrugs. She doesn't have much to do. She never has anything to do, aside from the papers she refuses to file.

Scott exits the Pathfinder quarters. A while later, he returns with a box. He places it on the table.

“I'll leave you with this,” he says, placing the box on the counter. He bites his lip, looking for the words to say. “It's for your dad.”

He leaves. More meetings, Sara guesses. It's the price of heroism. 

Sara doesn't open the box right away. Instead, she stares as if she can see through the box and examine the contents that way. It's a box, unassuming, yet her brother wants her to see it.

Tired of staring, she opens it.

Her father's helmet. 

She collapses, hugging the helmet close and sons. Emotions she longed buried come rushing back to flood her heart.

\--

Death is a celebration of life, they always say. They engrave it on tombstones to keep the family at peace.   
  
Sara doesn't know if Alec's life deserves a celebration and neither does his abrupt death,  but she finds peace despite that.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't what I originally planned but stuff happened in my personal life and tl;dr I've experienced something similar to what Sara goes through in this fic and I thought why not write a fic about it.
> 
> I hope the requester enjoys it regardless. It was a pretty tough fic for me to write considering I had to open some difficult emotions.


End file.
